Thursday, November 01, 2007
It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!
Ultimately, it's not about the candy at all. It's all about the Halloween Love. It's about all the smiles you inspire, the people who stop in the middle of the street to admire your costumes and the wide-eyed wonder from adult householders just before they say, with child-like glee, "Wow, those are great costumes!"
That's why I like Halloween, better than the other holidays and observances. Although I like Christmas as much as the next person, that season has gotten bogged down by too many soul-sapping reminders of work-a-day adulthood: all the Christmas parties you have to attend (or the resentments you harbour for the parties to which you weren't invited); the keep-up-with-the-Jones' exterior home decorations; all the professional-obligation Christmas cards you have to send to people you don't really like but whose asses you have to kiss; and all the many, many excessive, fun-robbing expectations laid on us by the Martha Stewarts and all the other mighty squares of the world.
But Halloween, by and large, is still just pure goofy, silly fun. The squares and "the Man" haven't gotten to Halloween yet.
I should hasten to add, for the benefit of my lovely wife, that teachers are the exception to this. Halloween, as my wife reminds me every year, is hell on wheels for teachers. It is, for them, a professional obligation and not a particularly pleasant one, so I can't begrudge my wife her occasional bouts of Halloween Grinchitude.
And speaking of the Grinch brings us to last night. For as long as I've had kids, I've dressed up with them and we've gone out as a consistent theme. This year we went as Dr. Seuss characters: the Grinch, the Cat-in-the-Hat and Sam-I-Am. I can say that we harvested our second greatest bounty of Halloween Love this year (our best, of course, being the year we went as KISS).
Big thanks are due to my sister-in-law, a skilled seamstress who foolishly committed to make the costumes for us from scratch before realizing how horribly difficult it is to work with fun-fur.
Not only did she sew the costumes, but she also sourced the material so that they were affordable. I had no idea when I started down the road of the Seuss theme how expensive fun-fur is. Fortunately, my sister-in-law is a power shopper and managed to track down some bolts of discount material. Thanks so much, L, we couldn't have done it without you.
Some people had trouble identifying me as Sam-I-Am, so I started being more aggressive about pushing the Green Eggs and Ham. At popular houses where we had to line up to get to the door, I had a schtick where I'd turn to people behind us in line and ask: "Would you like some green eggs and ham while you're waiting?" They would invariably decline, so then, in a humorously dead-pan tone, I'd vary my offerings: "How about over there? Would you, could you over there? Or in the house, or with a mouse?" This got a good reaction.
My oldest son, a teenager, once again was too cool to join our theme. He went out with friends and dressed as an injured hockey player. He didn't just put on hockey gear; he put real effort into simulating wounds. Most of his friends wore no costumes at all. So I'm glad to see I've at least taught him something about the Halloween spirit.
posted by Mentok @ 10:23 a.m.,
8 Comments:
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At 12:25 p.m.,
Rachel said...
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Wow, you guys all look great! How fun and exciting. Your sister did a wonderful job indeed, I must applaud her efforts and your efforts as well Mentok. :-) Hope you guys made out like bandits for your efforts.
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At 2:02 p.m.,
said...
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those costumes are incredible! have you gotten all the makeup out of your pores yet? : )
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At 2:35 p.m.,
cchang said...
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That's a really creative set of costumes! Kudos to your sis.
I think I like Halloween more than Christmas because there isn't sappy holiday music droning on and on in the shopping malls, grocery stores, gas stations, elevators, etc. I swear if I hear another R&B rendition of "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer" I will kill someone. -
At 11:33 a.m.,
Mentok said...
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rachel - Thanks! Yes, thanks to relatively warm weather and an early start, we did in fact make out like bandits. But, again, it's not about the candy ;-)
marcy - getting it out of the pores wasn't the hard part. Getting it out of my goatee was much tougher. I had just gotten used to the idea of having the occasional grey strand in there... damned if I was going to accept even a single white hair!
cindy - I'm with you on the anti-Xmas muzak. Astonishingly, the local Wal-Mart started the Christmas muzak on November 1! Are they trying to get people to hate them more or what? -
At 4:42 p.m.,
FiL said...
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Once again, Dearest Mentok, you win Halloween, hands down.
*FiL stands quietly in awe of Mentok's costumed greatness*
I replaced the Ozzy garb with a vampire getup for evening frivolities with the kids. While out with them, I sneaked up behind an unsuspecting parent, billowed my cape, and bared my prosthetic canines at her neck. She turned slightly and shrieked blue f'ing murder - I think I scared about ten years off her life. She was quite yummy looking - perhaps I should have had a wee bite and suck... ;-) -
At 5:23 p.m.,
Mentok said...
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Fil - the beauty of your costume (the Ozzy one) was how much you could achieve by acting with minimal costumery. Your description of shuffling about, mumbling and calling for "Sharon" had me chortling out loud.
...but yes I've noted before that, if it's cougar bait you're looking for, you can't beat the traditionals e.g. vampire, werewolf, demon. Puts a whole new spin on the axiom "cougars are the devils candy".
Gawd, how did we get talking about cougars again? This can't be healthy. -
At 10:28 a.m.,
said...
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deep down, you're a couple of dawgs, so you simply can't help it. ;-)
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At 8:47 p.m.,
said...
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Just wondering but how did you make the green eggs and ham? Thanks!
